Environment: Low-carbon Technologies

Lord Woolmer of Leeds Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woolmer of Leeds]

It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, with his typically incisive and practical proposals. I join my noble friends in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, for bringing forward this debate. Given the number of speakers, it is clearly a welcome and timely one. I join all other noble Lords in warmly congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Prescott. He is a fellow Yorkshireman, as it were, and, as always, managed to bring Yorkshire and Hull into a global speech—and quite rightly so. I warmly welcome the noble Lord.

I shall concentrate my remarks on two matters, biomass and carbon capture and storage, both of which are of enormous importance to the Yorkshire and Humber region, where I reside. Biomass has been touched on by my noble friend Lord Berkeley. It has many advantages as a source of electricity generation. It can be fully sustainable and can provide a reliable, flexible and responsive source of power generation. There is a plentiful supply of biomass. Contrary to what my noble friend Lord Berkeley said, taking its cycle of production as a whole, it is a relatively cheap renewable source. It is not being held back in its application by that matter.

There are three ways in which biomass can be used to generate electricity: co-firing in existing coal-fired power stations; building new 100 per cent biomass powered stations; and converting existing coal-fired power stations into completely biomass supply. The first is already in operation and is held back in its use of non-energy biomass only by an unnecessarily restrictive application of the renewables obligation scheme. I hope very much that, unlike the previous Government, the new Government will be willing to look more vigorously at that. Civil servants tended to resist Ministers’ proposals because they did not want to damage wind power coming on stream and they thought they might keep coal in production. As studies show, these are unnecessary concerns.

The second way of providing 100 per cent biomass use in power generation is a very practical and known technology that could be brought forward within a relatively short period. It requires a further look at the regulatory environment, creating more certainty, particularly as regards grandfather rights. I know that the Minister and his department are looking at this. I hope very much that he can give us some additional reassurance on that tonight. The third, along with carbon capture and storage, requires support for a demonstration plant, either with the renewable obligations system or a new framework such that the Government may bring forward.

Yorkshire and Humberside has a number of big coal-fired power stations, and biomass is one—only one—important component in reducing CO₂ emissions while maintaining electricity generation and employment. Wind power generation has dominated renewables thinking and that has had an impact on government policy. I very much hope that the new Government will look again at the way in which biomass really can play a major part.

I turn finally to carbon capture and storage. I welcome the Government’s continued support for CCS demonstration projects and I was delighted at the establishment of the Office of Carbon Capture and Storage. I welcome the way in which the department and the Minister are being proactive in encouraging major interested parties to engage with them.

Last Friday, I chaired a conference in Leeds which brought together a wide range of interests in the Yorkshire region. There were contributors from DECC, National Grid, Powerfuel Power Limited which is developing the Hatfield CCS project, Drax Power, and representatives from a number of engineering, technology and service-related industries. There was a real sense at that conference for the first time that carbon capture and storage is a serious possibility within business planning horizons.

Why in Yorkshire are we so interested in CCS? The region emits 60 million tonnes of CO₂ per year—equivalent to almost half of all emissions generated by households in just the Yorkshire and Humber region. Yorkshire is the second largest generator of CO₂ in Europe after the Ruhr valley. There is a large number of power stations and heavy industry in the region. There are 14 emitters of more than 1 million tonnes of CO₂ and these are mainly clustered in a corridor north and south of the M62. The region therefore has a genuinely large potential for reducing carbon emissions. It has large potential offshore storage sites in the depleting gas fields and saline aquifers. There is a number of existing gas terminals on the coast that could be linked between the pipelines and the storage facilities.

The next three CCS demonstration projects need to capitalise on this potential for huge benefits in reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the region. It is important from the start to develop a potential trunk pipeline with linking spurs. This requires the demonstration projects to use an oversized pipeline for CO₂ transport. That might seem to be rather arcane, but is actually important. The important Hatfield project, which is likely to go forward, will emit about 4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. That requires a pipeline of only 18 inches in diameter. However, if that goes to the coast, no one else can use it. A 40-inch pipeline, which is double the size, can transport 40 tonnes of carbon dioxide—10 times more. So the issue of installing an oversized pipeline is genuinely important.

The Committee on Climate Change commented on this in its recent report. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, is in his seat, because when he took the Climate Change Bill through the House on behalf of the then Opposition, he wanted the committee to take decisions, not give advice. Let me tell noble Lords what the committee said in its report last month. It stated:

“The competitive bidding process for the CCS demonstrations will need to make clear how proximity to other sources of CO₂ and the oversizing of CO₂ pipelines will affect a project’s chance of selection”.

If the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, had had his way, that would have been a decision, not a piece of advice. So I ask the Minister and the Office of Carbon Capture and Storage to consider with the greatest care the huge potential of CCS in Yorkshire and Humberside, to consider with equal care the advice of the Committee on Climate Change on the cluster and pipeline capacity issues, and to ensure that the CCS demonstration project selection takes the advice of the Committee on Climate Change fully and effectively into account.